Past lawsuits and legislative attempts by charter schools and the school districts that govern them prompted a state auditor’s report released Tuesday.

The report suggests legislative action to address concerns the state found with oversight and school operations themselves.

Here’s a link to the summary of the auditor’s report.

“Some School Districts Improperly Authorized and Inadequately Monitored Out‐of‐District Charter Schools,” was the subtitle on the report, echoing the sentiments of several local current and former school officials who have called for more oversight.

Former Newhall School District Superintendent Marc Winger, who managed the district while it was engaged in litigation with the Albert Einstein Academy for the Letters, Arts, and Sciences, which eventually sought and gained oversight from the Acton Agua Dulce Unified School District, saw the report as “vindicating” for his efforts to garner more oversight for charter schools.

Related story: Judge Asks Einstein Academy To Seek New Approval For Charter

“I believe this report vindicates Newhall’s position in both its lawsuit against AADUSD and the Einstein Charter, and its efforts to pass legislation to correct the lack of oversight and abuses of the Charter School Act,” Winger said. “Hopefully, the Legislature will take meaningful action to correct the problems, which we complained about, that have now been validated by the State Auditor.”

The report looked at the systems in place for oversight, or lack thereof, and suggests more regular reports from the charter schools, in order to increase compliance and accountability.

Here’s the link to the complete report.

Background

“Community members can initiate the establishment of charter schools, which operate independently of existing school district structures,” the report notes. “Although these schools are generally exempt from most requirements governing districts, they must comply with select statutes and meet certain funding conditions.”

Related story: Judge Rules Against Einstein Academy At Hearing For Charter School

Each charter school is accountable to the authorizing entity, which could be a district, a county office of education, or the state’s Education Board of Education — whichever the authorizing entity might be, according to the report. “The authorizing entity has certain oversight responsibilities, including monitoring the school’s fiscal condition and notifying the state of certain events.”

The state’s audit focused on the oversight that three authorizing districts provided three of their charter schools.

The key findings included the following, according to the auditor’s report:

1. Exceptions to state law allow districts to authorize charter schools that operate outside of their respective boundaries—the majority of the charter schools authorized by the districts we reviewed, operated locations outside of their authorizers’ boundaries.

» Districts can increase enrollment and their revenue without being accountable to the communities that are hosting the schools they authorize.

» Some of the districts we reviewed charged oversight fees and/or additional service fees without justifying the costs of providing those services.

The State does not know how many out‐of‐district charter school locations exist because complete data are not available—over 10 percent of these 1,246 charter schools had at least one of their school locations outside of their respective authorizing districts’ boundaries.

2. The three districts did not have formal financial oversight procedures—two districts did not respond promptly to early indicators of fiscal problems at two charter schools that eventually closed.

» Despite one school experiencing fiscal challenges over two years before it closed—such as decreased enrollment, projected deficits, and a pending lawsuit—the district responded slowly.

» Another school’s finances fluctuated significantly from one financial report to the next—over the three years that preceded its closure—but the district took little action for months.

3. None of the districts regularly raised concerns about academic performance even though two of their charter schools’ English and math scores were below the combined average of comparable schools for two years.

Suggested actions for charter school governance

The report’s summary also cites the following recommendations:

The Legislature should do the following:

• Clarify when charter schools can operate outside of their respective boundary and require a 30-day advance notice and public hearing in the affected host districts of a pending decision to ensure community support.
• Require charter schools to annually report all their school locations to the State and their authorizers.
• Require state and local educational entities and subject-matter experts to recommend tools and guidance for authorizers to provide effective financial oversight. Also, require authorizers to assess annually whether charter schools are meeting academic goals.

Districts should take the following actions to provide effective financial and academic oversight:

• Develop procedures for reviewing financial information, conducting annual visits, addressing financial concerns, and having district representation on each charter school’s governing board.
• Provide charter schools with timely and annual feedback regarding academic performance and work with charter schools with poor performance results.

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